


At Least the Water's Beneath Your Chin

by sinuous_curve



Category: Swimming RPF
Genre: Birthdays, Blowjobs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-03
Updated: 2011-08-03
Packaged: 2017-10-22 04:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinuous_curve/pseuds/sinuous_curve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Ryan wakes up because his phone rings. He mumbles something unimpressed to his pillow, groping on his bedside table and it takes a good thirty seconds to feel through the crap before he lands on his cell. and He only cracks open one eye to see the little blue box on screen that says </i>Message: mphelps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Least the Water's Beneath Your Chin

**Author's Note:**

> This is insunshine's fault. <3

Ryan wakes up because his phone rings. He mumbles something unimpressed to his pillow, groping on his bedside table and it takes a good thirty seconds to feel through the crap before he lands on his cell. and He only cracks open one eye to see the little blue box on screen that says _Message: mphelps_.

Yawning, he shifts onto his side and swipes across the screen. _Hpy b-day. now ur old_. Ryan smiles to his empty room, throwing his arm across his face against the bright glare of sun seeping in through the windows.

 _old like you_ , he sends back, and shoves back his blankets.

He spends fifteen minutes in the shower, letting the hot water pound against his back until his muscles unwind a little. “Happy birthday to me,” he mumbles, scrubbing shampoo into his hair even though he knows no amount of soap will probably ever really get the smell of chlorine out of his skin. He doesn’t actually mind, so much. It’s sort of soothing.

There’s another message on his phone when he shuffles back into his bedroom, wearing nothing but a thick towel wrapped around his waist. He swipes the screen again. _not as old as u_ is what Michael has to say.

 _blow me._ Ryan adds the period deliberately.

He dries off the worst of the damp and tosses the towel into his overflowing laundry basket. He probably needs to wash some clothes, or something, but he’s been swimming so much he just hasn’t had time. The more people talk about him being the best -- which just feels kind of _wrong_ \-- the harder he has to swim to prove it.

His phone buzzes again as he’s yanking on underwear and jeans. He finds a probably-clean tee shirt stuffed into a drawer and eases it on, snagging his phone off his bed on his way out.

It says _might b the plan_ and Ryan almost swallows his tongue stumbling down the stairs. Michael can do that to him.

*

He’s finishing a second package of Poptarts for breakfast when he hears the low growl of a car turning into the drive and he pushes out of his chair, grinning like a dork. Ryan opens the door in his bare feet before Michael’s even cut the engine, leaning against the frame with a half eaten brown sugar Poptart held loosely in one hand.

Michael’s in jeans that ride low on his swimmer’s hips and a white Speedo tee-shirt. His hair’s cut short enough that Ryan can see his scalp; he wants to skim his fingers over it. His flip flops are old leather, battered from years of use and being thrown into pools more times than anyone can count or remember.

“Happy birthday,” Michael says, grinning hard, hands pushed down in his pockets.

“Thanks.” Ryan takes a last bite and offers the last of his Poptart. “Want the rest?”

Michael snags it, standing on the top step. He’s close enough for Ryan to feel the heat coming off his body and smell the chlorine and soap on his skin. He takes a bite, chews, and swallows while he _looks_ at Ryan, eyes warm and affectionate and promising. “Thanks, old man.”

*

Ryan has party plans on Saturday, with copious amounts of booze and his friends and a bunch of different TVs set up with Xboxs and shit, but his actual birthday happened to fall on a Wednesday -- which is a shitty day for a birthday -- so he has nothing really to do except call his family and let them sing over the phone.

Maybe he should be disappointed, but sitting in the passenger seat of Michael’s car with Lil’ Wayne piping softly through the stereo, he doesn’t really mind.

Honestly? He doesn’t mind at all.

Michael drives with one hand on the wheel and the other draped on the open window, sunglasses down and his head cocked at a soft angle. Ryan watches him from the corner of his eye, one foot pushed up on the dashboard as he replies to a flood of birthday texts. It feels _easy_ , which he almost wasn’t expecting. It hasn’t been that way for awhile.

“Where are we going?” Ryan asks.

“It’s a fucking surprise,” Michael says lightly, grinning.

Ryan likes surprises.

Fifteen minutes later they pull into the parking lot of Casa Vallarta, which is Ryan’s favorite Mexican place in the US. The portions are huge and the wait staff likes him, because he tips 50% and doesn’t give them shit. “Oh, shit,” Ryan chuckles.

“Happy birthday,” Michael says again.

*

Between the two of them, they polish off two eight taco platters, four tostadas, four enchiladas (Ryan’s gets just cheese and Michael slathers his in red sauce), two sides of Mexican rice, and literally a pot of black beans. Plus a giant margarita each, licking the salt off the rim as they watch each other.

“The fuck do you eat this much every day?” Ryan asks. His sides are groaning.

Michael laughs a little bit breathlessly, forking the last of the rice into his mouth. “I’m growing boy or a top athlete or some shit like that. Gotta fuel myself.”

Ryan snorts. “Man, what are you gonna do when you retire?”

“I’m never going to.” Michael pops a tortilla chip into his mouth and drips salsa down his chin. “I will swim until the end of the world, amen.”

Ryan raises his glass. “A-fucking-men.”

It’s a joke, but he sort of believes it. There’s something about Michael, in the way he swims and how he looks when he gets into the pool. Ryan can separate himself from the water; he has plans for the day when the next seventeen year old rises up with bionic limbs and a suit that actually turns you into water and makes him a relic. But Michael, man. Michael has chlorine for blood.

*

When they get back in the car, Michael has a spot of chocolate on his bottom lip from the big bowl of fried ice cream the staff brought out in celebration. They sang _Happy Birthday_ , too, and made Ryan wear a giant sombrero and blow out a candle that melted into the dessert.

“You have stuff on your mouth,” Ryan says.

Michael glances at him, sunglasses still perched on the top of his head. And for a split second, Ryan’s skin buzzes like it’s been shot through with an electric current. It makes him think of how the air feels right before a storm, heavy and tense. The short hairs on his arms stand up.

“Come and get it,” Michael says, shifting in his seat.

Ryan knows the windows are tinted and he knows that even if anyone did see, they probably wouldn’t immediately think of Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte. Which is at least a third of why he can lean over and swipe his tongue against Michael’s bottom lip.

The faint taste of chocolate blossoms in his mouth for a split second before Michael turns his head and suddenly it’s a kiss.

A kind of awkward, badly angled, slightly chaste kiss, but still a _kiss_. Ryan has his hand curled around Michael’s neck without conscious thought, because he has missed this shit, yes he has.

“Now what?” Ryan mumbles when they break apart.

Michael smiles and touches his cheek. “It’s still your fucking birthday, isn’t it?”

*

Michael drives for two fucking hours, leaving behind the city and everything else after the first forty-five minutes. He keeps Lil’ Wayne on the stereo and Ryan stops wondering after awhile and leans his seat back, so the wind blows lightly on his face and the sun feels warm on his skin.

He doesn’t mean to drop off, but he does, one arm tossed over his eyes and his foot back up on the dash. It’s beautifully blurry moment between humming along to the song and sleeping and he wakes up with Michael’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him. “Ryan. _Ry_ an. Lochte, wake up.”

“Mmph.” Ryan mumbles, curling his toes against his flip flops and shifting against the leather. “Wassit?”

Michael laughs, then bends down and nips at his jaw. “Shitfuck,” Ryan gasps, flailing his arm out and opening his eyes. Michael’s standing right next to him, door thrown open with the sun turning his silhouette hazy at the edges.

“We’re here,” Michael says, cocking his head toward a stretch of crumbling brown rock.

Ryan raises an eyebrow. “You brought me to look at rocks?”

“There’s a beach behind it, asshole.”

“Oh.”

It’s a truth universally acknowledged between them (and most swimmers Ryan knows) that swimming at a _beach_ is an entirely different thing than swimming at a _pool_. People tend not to get that, but Ryan understands. They just see the same activity and he can’t explain why throwing himself against pounding waves is nothing at all like practicing his goddamn turns eight hundred thousand times while he worries about his lap times.

“You coming?” Michael asks. “Or do I have to carry you?”

Ryan levels himself up and tumbles out of the car, just managing to unbuckle his seat belt before he makes a fucking fool of himself. “I don’t have any trunks.”

Michael throws him a look over his shoulder as he walks across the haphazard dirt pretending to be a parking lot. “Why would you need trunks?”

*

They leave their clothes in a messy pile on top of the giant towel Michael had in his trunk, then go running full out into the warm water as they whoop and yell.

It’s warm only in a relative sense, but it feels really fucking good on Ryan’s skin as he hurls himself toward the waves, toes digging into wet sand. It smells and tastes like salt and something clean, the way shells do when he cups them in his hand and tries to hear the waves inside. The sky is fine and clear and endless and they’re alone, which is enough. Ryan isn’t alone very much and sometimes he misses it.

And then there’s Michael, standing planted with the water lapping at his belly and his hands laced behind his head, eyes closed. He looks like some kind of sea god or something like that, all long smooth muscle and water sparkling against his skin.

Ryan splashes him because he has to, because there are limit to what he can take on any given day.

Michael squawks out a sound of surprise and Ryan busts out laughing, swiping his arm through the clean water to send more of it pelting onto Michael.

And then Michael lunges at him, catching him around the waist and sending them both crashing down beneath the waves. Their legs tangle up together and Michael’s face presses against his stomach and that, really, is all Ryan really wished for as a birthday present.

*

When they end up back on the beach, just as the sun has begun to head back down in the sky, they don’t say anything.

Not that they’ve ever really said much to each other when it comes to this. The line between what they first were and what they used to be is a lot finer than Ryan ever expected. Though, it’s not like he really could have anticipated what Michael became. It’s only hard when they try to figure it out, so they don’t, and it’s been awhile.

Michael shoves their clothes away with his foot and pushes Ryan down on the beach towel. It’s hot from laying in the sun and Ryan’s back prickles; he’s gonna have a little bit of a burn in the morning. Michael kneels between Ryan’s legs with drops of water caught on his eyelashes runnels traversing paths over his shoulders and chest and stomach.

Ryan thinks Michael looks weird dry.

And then Michael crouches down, planting one hand on Ryan’s hip and circling the other around his dick. And _then_ Michael sucks the head into his mouth and Ryan chokes back a stupid, needy sound and rakes his fingers against Michael’s scalp.

*

They spend the rest of the afternoon and evening that way, in the water fucking around and then out on the towel. They crash through the waves and fifteen minutes later Ryan’s sinking down on Michael’s cock with his teeth gritted against the intrusion that always spikes up hard against pleasure in the first moment.

As the sun actually sets, bleeding the sky of light to dark shades of purple and blue, Ryan stretches out on his back with his palms turned up toward the first faint stars flickering into brightness overhead. Next to him, Michael lays on his side with his fingers tracing patterns around Ryan’s bellybutton. His touch is light, almost delicate.

“Hey,” Michael says.

Ryan cracks open his eyes, feeling lazy and indolent and satisfied. “Hm?”

“Happy birthday,” Michael says and kisses him.


End file.
